I meant to post this two or three days ago.
I record two pieces of good news.
While checking for updates at The Practice Room, I was so pleased and excited to find out that this site got a mention from the author.
This was what he had to say:
Among many other things, the gentleman behind this blog seems to scour You Tube for videos of guitar players. Right now he has Julian Bream, John Williams, Django Reinhardt, Ali Farka Toure and Barney Kessel videos posted. There’s also a long list of guitar related inks, including both The Practice Room and WorkshopLive. (Hey – this guy’s all right!) He lives in Singapore. I check his Record My Mind regularly to see what he’s uncovered.
It’s such a wonderful compliment to know that there are people out there who I don’t know personally but bother to check my site regularly. I was gushing to my wife and so pleased!
Actually, I didn’t post a video of Ali Farka Toure, but posted a video of his son, Vieux Farka Toure here. I will probably post videos of Ali another time, who unfortunately has also passed away on 7 March 2006.
Anyway, this is what The Practice Room is about:
This blog is about playing music – learning, practicing, getting better, keeping it fresh, and stretching the ears. We start by focusing on guitar and keyboards, but, like Jerry Garcia said, “The music is the most important thing. and the guitar is only the instrument.â€The Practice Room is sponsored by WorkshopLive, a new company created by the people who operate the National Guitar Workshop, the country’s largest summer music program. WorkshopLive is changing the way the world learns by providing online music lessons. The National Guitar Workshop also inspired the creation of two additional companies DayJams and Workshop Arts publications.
The Practice Room will mix news about WorkshopLive with personal experience (ours and yours) from the practice room, plus tips and suggestions from the many, many teachers in the WorkshopLive family. And, just to lighten things up, we’ll have some distractions – cool guitars, trivia, etc. Some of what we write here will eventually show up within WorkshopLive. And of course, we’ll be encouraging you to check it out for yourself when the time comes. Workshop Arts, DayJams and the National Guitar Workshops will all get the occasional plug. And some of what we write will just be for this blog. We’ll try to keep things clear.
There will be many contributors from the projects named above who will share this space. Playing music, especially for us non-pros, can be as frustrating as it is enjoyable. Let’s share our resources for making music.
Check out TJH’s site here.
The second piece of good news is that I just finished a work project which ended with a presentation lasting about 1 hours and 45 minutes to the most prominent businessmen and civil servant on our island. Glad to have one thing off my back.